Recasting A Misfire: The Guggenheim’s YouTube Biennial

It looks like I hit the nail on the wrong head in this morning’s post. I complained that the Guggenheim’s curators weren’t qualified enough to choose 200 great submissions made via youtube forgetting that they hadn’t even set the exhibition up well enough to have that problem (this isn’t to say they couldn’t use a web expert though). They’ve basically cast an open call for submissions via youtube, which will be a great way to create a lot of needless work for the staff.

It’d be nice if the museum had enough vision to see the Internet as more than an advanced version of the post office.

It is nuts – there is more material on YouTube of every genre and description than a team of curators could evaluate in a lifetime, so by all means let’s ask for more of it be created and restrict it to “video art” parameters decided among the curators, YouTube p.r. department and Hewlett-Packard, which will provide the gear.

http://tommoody.us tom moody

It is nuts – there is more material on YouTube of every genre and description than a team of curators could evaluate in a lifetime, so by all means let’s ask for more of it be created and restrict it to “video art” parameters decided among the curators, YouTube p.r. department and Hewlett-Packard, which will provide the gear.

http://www.artfagcity.com Art Fag City

I couldn’t agree more.

http://www.artfagcity.com Art Fag City

I couldn’t agree more.

SS

Can you guys give me some examples of this great YouTube material I’m missing? I mean, I like the really cute lemur as much as the next guy, and those people lip-synching the Lady Gaga song are certainly doing important cultural work, but clearly there’s a whole avant-garde that has passed me by.

SS

Can you guys give me some examples of this great YouTube material I’m missing? I mean, I like the really cute lemur as much as the next guy, and those people lip-synching the Lady Gaga song are certainly doing important cultural work, but clearly there’s a whole avant-garde that has passed me by.

SS, almost every artist working in traditional video and “new media” has a YouTube account at this point. Just google your favorite artists and see what they have up.

http://tommoody.us tom moody

SS, almost every artist working in traditional video and “new media” has a YouTube account at this point. Just google your favorite artists and see what they have up.

http://tommoody.us tom moody

Paddy, the teaser video for the show you posted earlier is very slickly produced. Not perfect, but a professional knew how to size and upload the video to minimize compression and mush. It looks like Pixar or something. Compare that to the typical user’s video. Where I’m going with this: most museum curators are trained in “video art” but not necessarily understanding hacker crap or judging amateur efforts. This format plays to their expertise. Hewlett can help contestants get up to “professional” speed and then the curators can judge the show the same way they would a selection of mailed-in DVDs, using evaluation criteria they’ve had since the port-a-pak era. But they get also the pop-culture juice of working with a new, hip, “people’s” medium.

http://tommoody.us tom moody

Paddy, the teaser video for the show you posted earlier is very slickly produced. Not perfect, but a professional knew how to size and upload the video to minimize compression and mush. It looks like Pixar or something. Compare that to the typical user’s video. Where I’m going with this: most museum curators are trained in “video art” but not necessarily understanding hacker crap or judging amateur efforts. This format plays to their expertise. Hewlett can help contestants get up to “professional” speed and then the curators can judge the show the same way they would a selection of mailed-in DVDs, using evaluation criteria they’ve had since the port-a-pak era. But they get also the pop-culture juice of working with a new, hip, “people’s” medium.

SS

Tom–yes, I’m aware of plenty of artists with YouTube accounts. (Artists usually have email addresses too, but that doesn’t make everyone’s work about “digital culture.”)

Obviously, YouTube a useful platform to disseminate work more widely than conventional gallery exhibitions allow. And I imagine that anyone I would choose to Google could be Googled just as easily by a Gugg curator. And all of these artists are probably aware of this open call, and will submit work if they chose to.

But I got the sense that you were suggesting that there is some wealth of brilliant secret outsider-y creators that the curators, in their narrow-minded technophobia, are passing by.

I’d love that to be the case, but I don’t have any evidence for that yet. (Bugs in monitors notwithstanding.)

None of which is say I’m not pretty damn skeptical about this show. Whether or not they’re simply using YouTube as a post office, I think it has everything to do with “Internet culture” — the ubiquitous Internet culture of “branding.”

SS

Tom–yes, I’m aware of plenty of artists with YouTube accounts. (Artists usually have email addresses too, but that doesn’t make everyone’s work about “digital culture.”)

Obviously, YouTube a useful platform to disseminate work more widely than conventional gallery exhibitions allow. And I imagine that anyone I would choose to Google could be Googled just as easily by a Gugg curator. And all of these artists are probably aware of this open call, and will submit work if they chose to.

But I got the sense that you were suggesting that there is some wealth of brilliant secret outsider-y creators that the curators, in their narrow-minded technophobia, are passing by.

I’d love that to be the case, but I don’t have any evidence for that yet. (Bugs in monitors notwithstanding.)

None of which is say I’m not pretty damn skeptical about this show. Whether or not they’re simply using YouTube as a post office, I think it has everything to do with “Internet culture” — the ubiquitous Internet culture of “branding.”

http://www.artfagcity.com Art Fag City

The video the Guggenheim hosts on it’s website uses a video game soundtrack, which made me not only think of the chiptune scene, but as a branded a product of the internet.

I’m guessing the one I posted will get more play simply by virtue of its embed, and thus solicit the kind of work you’re talking about, but I think there’s a few different messages being sent out here. If I were to guess, I’d say there’s a couple different marketing agencies working on pimping the same product, each with a different idea of what kind of art they want to get.

http://www.artfagcity.com Art Fag City

The video the Guggenheim hosts on it’s website uses a video game soundtrack, which made me not only think of the chiptune scene, but as a branded a product of the internet.

I’m guessing the one I posted will get more play simply by virtue of its embed, and thus solicit the kind of work you’re talking about, but I think there’s a few different messages being sent out here. If I were to guess, I’d say there’s a couple different marketing agencies working on pimping the same product, each with a different idea of what kind of art they want to get.

http://www.artfagcity.com Art Fag City

@SS I don’t think it’s technophobia, I just think you have spend inordinate amounts of time on the web looking for and making image to develop a really acute sensibility. Like anything else really.

As for this show, I think the “ubiquitous internet culture of branding” is putting it quite well. I mean, I thought Vimeo was the site that people use for high quality video.

http://www.artfagcity.com Art Fag City

@SS I don’t think it’s technophobia, I just think you have spend inordinate amounts of time on the web looking for and making image to develop a really acute sensibility. Like anything else really.

As for this show, I think the “ubiquitous internet culture of branding” is putting it quite well. I mean, I thought Vimeo was the site that people use for high quality video.

http://markbilly.net mark billy

Did the Guggenheim put you up to this? Are they holding family members hostage?

http://markbilly.net mark billy

Did the Guggenheim put you up to this? Are they holding family members hostage?

http://tommoody.us tom moody

SS, by soliciting artists comfortable with such solicitations (many aren’t), and by making technical specifications somewhat more narrow than the range of what’s available on the internet, the museum is creating a filter for the work. You don’t have to agree with my suggested reasons for that. I’m not sure who said “there is some wealth of brilliant secret outsider-y creators that the curators, in their narrow-minded technophobia, are passing by.” If that’s how you phrase it what’s the point of giving examples? They’ll just be swatted aside with sarcasm. Based on the art and music in the two trailers I see no reason to trust the curators’ taste, but if you do, that’s cool.

http://tommoody.us tom moody

SS, by soliciting artists comfortable with such solicitations (many aren’t), and by making technical specifications somewhat more narrow than the range of what’s available on the internet, the museum is creating a filter for the work. You don’t have to agree with my suggested reasons for that. I’m not sure who said “there is some wealth of brilliant secret outsider-y creators that the curators, in their narrow-minded technophobia, are passing by.” If that’s how you phrase it what’s the point of giving examples? They’ll just be swatted aside with sarcasm. Based on the art and music in the two trailers I see no reason to trust the curators’ taste, but if you do, that’s cool.

http://qotile.net Paul Slocum

Seems like a lot of fanfare for somebody making a favorites list.

http://qotile.net Paul Slocum

Seems like a lot of fanfare for somebody making a favorites list.

Shiralee

AFC, how does inviting the public to participate in a public institution via the web make it a more advanced version of the post office? What is your argument to back up this statement? Shouldn’t museums offer participatory experiences? See http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/

Shiralee

AFC, how does inviting the public to participate in a public institution via the web make it a more advanced version of the post office? What is your argument to back up this statement? Shouldn’t museums offer participatory experiences? See http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/

Dave

right on, Paul Slocum. I feel like this is an easy out. Some of us spend the majority of our work days doing this same thing and not getting paid for it. except we actually have to do the work of discovery, and the “man” calls it “time thieving” and we don’t get to show it at the guggenheim sponsored by google and HP. nice try Gugg, but….

Dave

right on, Paul Slocum. I feel like this is an easy out. Some of us spend the majority of our work days doing this same thing and not getting paid for it. except we actually have to do the work of discovery, and the “man” calls it “time thieving” and we don’t get to show it at the guggenheim sponsored by google and HP. nice try Gugg, but….

http://nyctheblog.com NYC The Blog

The TOS has built in curation: “You cannot be a resident or citizen of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Myanmar/Burma, Syria, Zimbabwe nor any other U.S.-sanctioned country” http://awurl.com/rWgrsGdLo

http://nyctheblog.com NYC The Blog

The TOS has built in curation: “You cannot be a resident or citizen of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Myanmar/Burma, Syria, Zimbabwe nor any other U.S.-sanctioned country” http://awurl.com/rWgrsGdLo

http://tommoody.us tom moody

SS used the phrase digital culture in quotation marks–just want to clarify that no one else used that term. Googling back on 9 years of my blog, I used the phrase once, seven years ago, in scare quotes because I was talking about the Whitney’s “BitStreams” show, which I thought was ill-conceived. In an earlier discussion here about painter Amy Sillman, I used “cyber-everything-culture” to describe the tools and networks we are increasingly all using, with perhaps an ironic nod to the claims made for that environment. It wasn’t a term of praise, just acknowledging the pervasiveness of the current situation and how it might be impacting painting as an art form. Both SS and Howard Halle have repeatedly put dot com boosterish words in my mouth and I ask that it please stop. It is what’s called a straw man argument–demolishing something not uttered to gainsay the other party.

http://tommoody.us tom moody

SS used the phrase digital culture in quotation marks–just want to clarify that no one else used that term. Googling back on 9 years of my blog, I used the phrase once, seven years ago, in scare quotes because I was talking about the Whitney’s “BitStreams” show, which I thought was ill-conceived. In an earlier discussion here about painter Amy Sillman, I used “cyber-everything-culture” to describe the tools and networks we are increasingly all using, with perhaps an ironic nod to the claims made for that environment. It wasn’t a term of praise, just acknowledging the pervasiveness of the current situation and how it might be impacting painting as an art form. Both SS and Howard Halle have repeatedly put dot com boosterish words in my mouth and I ask that it please stop. It is what’s called a straw man argument–demolishing something not uttered to gainsay the other party.

Vinness Clemsahn

“You cannot be a resident or citizen of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Myanmar/Burma, Syria, Zimbabwe…”

Are these terms in place because of the corporate sponsership?

Vinness Clemsahn

“You cannot be a resident or citizen of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Myanmar/Burma, Syria, Zimbabwe…”

Are these terms in place because of the corporate sponsership?

http://tommoody.us tom moody

Yes.

http://tommoody.us tom moody

Yes.

http://www.lorenmunk.com James Kalm

As I stated in my original post at Jerry Saltz’s New York Mag Vulture site on Tuesday, this recognition is long over due. Secondly, I’m constantly astounded and kept laughing by how far behind the curve those who’re accepted as cultural pundits are, especially here in New York. I’ve personally encountered respected members from the highest levels of the arts “establishment” who have the most uninformed distain for YouTube or anything else, including bloggers, on the internet (I actually prefer it that way).

I like the analogy of using YouTube as just a post office and missing its unique culture. Having, over several years, posted over four-hundred videos online there’s a lot more freaky shit involved in the YouTube world than anyone who’s not immersed in it on a daily basis can begin to imagine, web spiders, morality committees, view booster scams, fetish communities, there’s even a bunch of refusnic channels for people who’ve been bumped from YouTube , I think it would be impossible to expect outside curators to understand the subtleties of this. I’m hopping for more but fear what we’ll be left with will be artsy vids that could have been made in the 1970s and maybe some slacker monologs, think Justin Bebier talking about his socks.

As Tom said above “there is more material on YouTube of every genre and description than a team of curators could evaluate in a lifetime”. As I understand it, YouTube is second only to Google in the size of its database, and knowing the density of video files they could surpass them soon. There is so much stuff, even God would be working overtime to watch it all.

Finally a heads up: Despite what Robert Storr says, this is just a continuation of the reevaluation of online media. Serious curators from serious institutions are again considering including web works and documentation in major up coming exhibitions.

P.S. I’m sure the governments of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Myanmar/Burma, Syria, Zimbabwe would love to let their citizens submit vids critical of their countries.

http://www.lorenmunk.com James Kalm

As I stated in my original post at Jerry Saltz’s New York Mag Vulture site on Tuesday, this recognition is long over due. Secondly, I’m constantly astounded and kept laughing by how far behind the curve those who’re accepted as cultural pundits are, especially here in New York. I’ve personally encountered respected members from the highest levels of the arts “establishment” who have the most uninformed distain for YouTube or anything else, including bloggers, on the internet (I actually prefer it that way).

I like the analogy of using YouTube as just a post office and missing its unique culture. Having, over several years, posted over four-hundred videos online there’s a lot more freaky shit involved in the YouTube world than anyone who’s not immersed in it on a daily basis can begin to imagine, web spiders, morality committees, view booster scams, fetish communities, there’s even a bunch of refusnic channels for people who’ve been bumped from YouTube , I think it would be impossible to expect outside curators to understand the subtleties of this. I’m hopping for more but fear what we’ll be left with will be artsy vids that could have been made in the 1970s and maybe some slacker monologs, think Justin Bebier talking about his socks.

As Tom said above “there is more material on YouTube of every genre and description than a team of curators could evaluate in a lifetime”. As I understand it, YouTube is second only to Google in the size of its database, and knowing the density of video files they could surpass them soon. There is so much stuff, even God would be working overtime to watch it all.

Finally a heads up: Despite what Robert Storr says, this is just a continuation of the reevaluation of online media. Serious curators from serious institutions are again considering including web works and documentation in major up coming exhibitions.

P.S. I’m sure the governments of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Myanmar/Burma, Syria, Zimbabwe would love to let their citizens submit vids critical of their countries.

http://www.lorenmunk.com James Kalm

As I stated in my original post at Jerry Saltz’s New York Mag Vulture site on Tuesday, this recognition is long over due. Secondly, I’m constantly astounded and kept laughing by how far behind the curve those who’re accepted as cultural pundits are, especially here in New York. I’ve personally encountered respected members from the highest levels of the arts “establishment” who have the most uninformed distain for YouTube or anything else, including bloggers, on the internet (I actually prefer it that way).

I like the analogy of using YouTube as just a post office and missing its unique culture. Having, over several years, posted over four-hundred videos online there’s a lot more freaky shit involved in the YouTube world than anyone who’s not immersed in it on a daily basis can begin to imagine, web spiders, morality committees, view booster scams, fetish communities, there’s even a bunch of refusnic channels for people who’ve been bumped from YouTube , I think it would be impossible to expect outside curators to understand the subtleties of this. I’m hopping for more but fear what we’ll be left with will be artsy vids that could have been made in the 1970s and maybe some slacker monologs, think Justin Bebier talking about his socks.

As Tom said above “there is more material on YouTube of every genre and description than a team of curators could evaluate in a lifetime”. As I understand it, YouTube is second only to Google in the size of its database, and knowing the density of video files they could surpass them soon. There is so much stuff, even God would be working overtime to watch it all.

Finally a heads up: Despite what Robert Storr says, this is just a continuation of the reevaluation of online media. Serious curators from serious institutions are again considering including web works and documentation in major up coming exhibitions.

P.S. I’m sure the governments of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Myanmar/Burma, Syria, Zimbabwe would love to let their citizens submit vids critical of their countries.

I’ve decided that instead of submitting something myself, I’m going to contact producers on Youtube who are true to the spirit of Youtube and deserve recognition, and urge them to submit specific videos to the contest. Rally, y’all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8g-pt9KEBo Paul Slocum

I’ve decided that instead of submitting something myself, I’m going to contact producers on Youtube who are true to the spirit of Youtube and deserve recognition, and urge them to submit specific videos to the contest. Rally, y’all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8g-pt9KEBo Paul Slocum

I’ve decided that instead of submitting something myself, I’m going to contact producers on Youtube who are true to the spirit of Youtube and deserve recognition, and urge them to submit specific videos to the contest. Rally, y’all.

Vinness Clemsahn

It just seems hokey and out of touch to me, too gimmicky. Like the Guggenheim wants to be ‘cool’ or something.

And the forced exclusion of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, etc..is this the world we live in? Ugh.

Vinness Clemsahn

It just seems hokey and out of touch to me, too gimmicky. Like the Guggenheim wants to be ‘cool’ or something.

And the forced exclusion of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, etc..is this the world we live in? Ugh.

Vinness Clemsahn

It just seems hokey and out of touch to me, too gimmicky. Like the Guggenheim wants to be ‘cool’ or something.

And the forced exclusion of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, etc..is this the world we live in? Ugh.

http://tommoody.us tom moody

We have two threads going here but thanks to James Kalm for adding to what I said previously, which I’d like to repeat here. The question under consideration is whether YouTube is just a delivery system for “video art” of the established, Nam Jun Paik variety, or whether itâ€™s a culture unto itself that curators should be learning about. By culture I don’t mean “digital culture” in the starry-eyed Nicholas Negroponte sense of an evolving hive mind but a culture in the Margaret Mead sense of a group with its own mores, which may or may not mature into a canon with critics, philosophers, checks, balances, etc. According to the New York Times, Hewlett Packard will be collaborating on the project “to teach skills like editing, animation and lighting to the video-naÃ¯ve,” and as noted by NYC the Blog above, the YouTube platform has company rules and acts as a censor independent of the museum. All this suggests that YouTube will be thought of in its original, intended, non-vernacular sense as a place to find “new talent” for art and TV, even though, over the years, the YouTube “street has found its own uses for things,” in William Gibson’s phrase. James Kalm mentions several of those; I noted in the earlier thread that YouTube is becoming a substitute iTunes, with people posting their favorite obscure song with a single still image for the consideration of the siteâ€™s talkative commenters. (I’ve been calling the site “America’s Jukebox.”) Will that and other “pirate” uses of YTâ€“-such as OAVs or “original anime videos” featuring anime clips recut with new musicâ€“-be reflected in the Guggenheim’s filtered call for entries? Doubtful–the YouTube competition will ultimately be WhateverWeSayTube.

http://tommoody.us tom moody

We have two threads going here but thanks to James Kalm for adding to what I said previously, which I’d like to repeat here. The question under consideration is whether YouTube is just a delivery system for “video art” of the established, Nam Jun Paik variety, or whether itâ€™s a culture unto itself that curators should be learning about. By culture I don’t mean “digital culture” in the starry-eyed Nicholas Negroponte sense of an evolving hive mind but a culture in the Margaret Mead sense of a group with its own mores, which may or may not mature into a canon with critics, philosophers, checks, balances, etc. According to the New York Times, Hewlett Packard will be collaborating on the project “to teach skills like editing, animation and lighting to the video-naÃ¯ve,” and as noted by NYC the Blog above, the YouTube platform has company rules and acts as a censor independent of the museum. All this suggests that YouTube will be thought of in its original, intended, non-vernacular sense as a place to find “new talent” for art and TV, even though, over the years, the YouTube “street has found its own uses for things,” in William Gibson’s phrase. James Kalm mentions several of those; I noted in the earlier thread that YouTube is becoming a substitute iTunes, with people posting their favorite obscure song with a single still image for the consideration of the siteâ€™s talkative commenters. (I’ve been calling the site “America’s Jukebox.”) Will that and other “pirate” uses of YTâ€“-such as OAVs or “original anime videos” featuring anime clips recut with new musicâ€“-be reflected in the Guggenheim’s filtered call for entries? Doubtful–the YouTube competition will ultimately be WhateverWeSayTube.

http://tommoody.us tom moody

We have two threads going here but thanks to James Kalm for adding to what I said previously, which I’d like to repeat here. The question under consideration is whether YouTube is just a delivery system for “video art” of the established, Nam Jun Paik variety, or whether itâ€™s a culture unto itself that curators should be learning about. By culture I don’t mean “digital culture” in the starry-eyed Nicholas Negroponte sense of an evolving hive mind but a culture in the Margaret Mead sense of a group with its own mores, which may or may not mature into a canon with critics, philosophers, checks, balances, etc. According to the New York Times, Hewlett Packard will be collaborating on the project “to teach skills like editing, animation and lighting to the video-naÃ¯ve,” and as noted by NYC the Blog above, the YouTube platform has company rules and acts as a censor independent of the museum. All this suggests that YouTube will be thought of in its original, intended, non-vernacular sense as a place to find “new talent” for art and TV, even though, over the years, the YouTube “street has found its own uses for things,” in William Gibson’s phrase. James Kalm mentions several of those; I noted in the earlier thread that YouTube is becoming a substitute iTunes, with people posting their favorite obscure song with a single still image for the consideration of the siteâ€™s talkative commenters. (I’ve been calling the site “America’s Jukebox.”) Will that and other “pirate” uses of YTâ€“-such as OAVs or “original anime videos” featuring anime clips recut with new musicâ€“-be reflected in the Guggenheim’s filtered call for entries? Doubtful–the YouTube competition will ultimately be WhateverWeSayTube.

I think the questions we need to be asking are 1. Why is the Guggenheim doing this? 2. Why now instead of 2-4 years ago? 3. What are they really looking for, based on the aesthetic they established in their videos?

I think the questions we need to be asking are 1. Why is the Guggenheim doing this? 2. Why now instead of 2-4 years ago? 3. What are they really looking for, based on the aesthetic they established in their videos?

I think the questions we need to be asking are 1. Why is the Guggenheim doing this? 2. Why now instead of 2-4 years ago? 3. What are they really looking for, based on the aesthetic they established in their videos?

http://mtaa.net/mtaaRR t.whid

I’m in agreement that this whole thing seems to be an ill-fated and ill-conceived marketing ploy. But the overall tone that the Gug is somehow a total n00b when it comes to the Internet misses some important historical context.

Unfortunately, most of the people responsible for these early forays are no longer there. But institutionally, the place has some cred.

http://mtaa.net/mtaaRR t.whid

I’m in agreement that this whole thing seems to be an ill-fated and ill-conceived marketing ploy. But the overall tone that the Gug is somehow a total n00b when it comes to the Internet misses some important historical context.

Unfortunately, most of the people responsible for these early forays are no longer there. But institutionally, the place has some cred.

http://mtaa.net/mtaaRR t.whid

I’m in agreement that this whole thing seems to be an ill-fated and ill-conceived marketing ploy. But the overall tone that the Gug is somehow a total n00b when it comes to the Internet misses some important historical context.

Unfortunately, most of the people responsible for these early forays are no longer there. But institutionally, the place has some cred.

http://mtaa.net/mtaaRR t.whid

I’m in agreement that this whole thing seems to be an ill-fated and ill-conceived marketing ploy. But the overall tone that the Gug is somehow a total n00b when it comes to the Internet misses some important historical context.

Unfortunately, most of the people responsible for these early forays are no longer there. But institutionally, the place has some cred.

http://www.artfagcity.com Art Fag City

@t.whid. I never saw that show — it looks great.

@Tom The more I think about this, the more I think it’s just sort of a convenient hook that youtube is known for finding talent. I mean, yes, that’s what they’ve set out to do, but the pairing seems not that much different than a collaboration with Coca-Cola and Adobe, in which the Guggenheim seeks out 20 great label designs. Adobe offers illustrator advice, and Coca-Cola, like almost any corporation, won’t use anything too riske.

http://www.artfagcity.com Art Fag City

@t.whid. I never saw that show — it looks great.

@Tom The more I think about this, the more I think it’s just sort of a convenient hook that youtube is known for finding talent. I mean, yes, that’s what they’ve set out to do, but the pairing seems not that much different than a collaboration with Coca-Cola and Adobe, in which the Guggenheim seeks out 20 great label designs. Adobe offers illustrator advice, and Coca-Cola, like almost any corporation, won’t use anything too riske.

http://tommoody.us tom moody

Here are my YouTube faves (SS is not allowed to look): [ http://www.youtube.com/user/teleclysm#g/f ]. Paul Slocum has a good idea of encouraging producers we like to submit but after watching that Guggenheim call-for-submissions video again I wouldn’t wish that process on my worst enemies. Normal video pausing into pseudo-glitchy jitter, gratuitous sped-up city scenes, quasi-8 bit music, a groovy fake Yellow Submarine sequence, stop-motion graffiti oozing off the wall and strutting around: the full panoply of effects a 30-something high paid art director would create to conjure happenin’ youth. By contrast, the work in the above faves list is no-budget, sincere, incomprehensible, vague, “weak,” anti-YouTube, no-style, slight, non-corporate, etc (but also brilliant). Recall what happened when Guthrie Lonergan curated a group of touchingly inept MySpace intros on YouTube. The work got duller when it was linked to directly by Rhizome.org and even duller when shown on professional gear at the New Museum. The work I love most would shrivel in the institutional spotlight and I shudder to think of a techie explaining to Silicious how to make a more polished use of Poser software.

http://tommoody.us tom moody

Here are my YouTube faves (SS is not allowed to look): [ http://www.youtube.com/user/teleclysm#g/f ]. Paul Slocum has a good idea of encouraging producers we like to submit but after watching that Guggenheim call-for-submissions video again I wouldn’t wish that process on my worst enemies. Normal video pausing into pseudo-glitchy jitter, gratuitous sped-up city scenes, quasi-8 bit music, a groovy fake Yellow Submarine sequence, stop-motion graffiti oozing off the wall and strutting around: the full panoply of effects a 30-something high paid art director would create to conjure happenin’ youth. By contrast, the work in the above faves list is no-budget, sincere, incomprehensible, vague, “weak,” anti-YouTube, no-style, slight, non-corporate, etc (but also brilliant). Recall what happened when Guthrie Lonergan curated a group of touchingly inept MySpace intros on YouTube. The work got duller when it was linked to directly by Rhizome.org and even duller when shown on professional gear at the New Museum. The work I love most would shrivel in the institutional spotlight and I shudder to think of a techie explaining to Silicious how to make a more polished use of Poser software.

http://tommoody.us tom moody

Here are my YouTube faves (SS is not allowed to look): [ http://www.youtube.com/user/teleclysm#g/f ]. Paul Slocum has a good idea of encouraging producers we like to submit but after watching that Guggenheim call-for-submissions video again I wouldn’t wish that process on my worst enemies. Normal video pausing into pseudo-glitchy jitter, gratuitous sped-up city scenes, quasi-8 bit music, a groovy fake Yellow Submarine sequence, stop-motion graffiti oozing off the wall and strutting around: the full panoply of effects a 30-something high paid art director would create to conjure happenin’ youth. By contrast, the work in the above faves list is no-budget, sincere, incomprehensible, vague, “weak,” anti-YouTube, no-style, slight, non-corporate, etc (but also brilliant). Recall what happened when Guthrie Lonergan curated a group of touchingly inept MySpace intros on YouTube. The work got duller when it was linked to directly by Rhizome.org and even duller when shown on professional gear at the New Museum. The work I love most would shrivel in the institutional spotlight and I shudder to think of a techie explaining to Silicious how to make a more polished use of Poser software.

L.K.

There’s a whole bunch of talented and hard-working unknown videomakers/artists who have used Youtube (and/or Vimeo, etc) as a platform to present their works online, and have never had any kind of exposure/recognition outside of obscure/indie places AND the internet platform (Youtube/Vimeo/their own personal sites), because the “right” people (those that are in the art and media business – curators/decision makers/art specialists/galleries/foundations/museums/collectors/press/you name the powers that be) have never heard of them (for whatever reasons, e.g. the artists didn’t have the right network of buddies, didn’t have the right pedigree/CV, didn’t come from within the art business, didn’t have a PR rep, nor the marketing skills/younameit, to get the exposure they deserve // also probably because of conservatism/uniformity of vision/narrow-mindedness from the art powers that be). In an era when the art world and general public has become more and more attached to the “fame” of an artist’s name rather that the quality of an artist’s work, if the Youtube Play selection process is fair (obviously it probably won’t be since it only involves a few select jurors kept secretly secret and institutional friends’ to judge the probably tens of thousands of submissions – I really hope the institutional friends won’t be those that recommend their own artists – artists who are already recognized in the art world as having exhibited in these same institutions), the organizers could indeed allow unknown talents to have a voice out there in this ruthless world that is art and its business, and perhaps discover the Van Gogh’s and Darger’s of the Video art world before those artists die and remain forgotten in the after-life (Van Gogh was a lucky one despite his fame after his death after all since he at least got recognized – notwithstanding his talent obviously).
Anyways, it seems to me that Youtube is looking for artists in the medium of video and video-art, as after all, Guggenheim is an art museum…
But my hopes are too high probably and I wonder how the 200 videos are going to be selected, not even talking about the 20 remaining ones…
Still, I am just dreaming that they really look at all the submissions brought forth, and do go through a rigorous selection process with multiple kinds of judges from multiple backgrounds watching fully and “ranking” every single video submitted, and that they do select deserving unknown talents that do push the boundaries of what video and video art means as a protean medium that has a lot of history from the early days of portapak to the advent of HDSLR, and whatever comes next in the artist’s imagination to create new languages/forms of expressions/rebellion/younameit, and new means of communicating them through video.
I hope they do take into consideration elevating pieces of art works as opposed to what’s just hip or cool in terms of animation and effects or number of views, and also consider works that dare to dissent from what has already been shown in the 60s’, 70’s, 80’s or 90’s or 00’s… I really hope they do look for unusual, thoughtful, elevating, singular pieces… but my hopes are probably too high! I’m hopeful they do… it would be a big and bold statement… though I’m not optimistic about it.

L.K.

There’s a whole bunch of talented and hard-working unknown videomakers/artists who have used Youtube (and/or Vimeo, etc) as a platform to present their works online, and have never had any kind of exposure/recognition outside of obscure/indie places AND the internet platform (Youtube/Vimeo/their own personal sites), because the “right” people (those that are in the art and media business – curators/decision makers/art specialists/galleries/foundations/museums/collectors/press/you name the powers that be) have never heard of them (for whatever reasons, e.g. the artists didn’t have the right network of buddies, didn’t have the right pedigree/CV, didn’t come from within the art business, didn’t have a PR rep, nor the marketing skills/younameit, to get the exposure they deserve // also probably because of conservatism/uniformity of vision/narrow-mindedness from the art powers that be). In an era when the art world and general public has become more and more attached to the “fame” of an artist’s name rather that the quality of an artist’s work, if the Youtube Play selection process is fair (obviously it probably won’t be since it only involves a few select jurors kept secretly secret and institutional friends’ to judge the probably tens of thousands of submissions – I really hope the institutional friends won’t be those that recommend their own artists – artists who are already recognized in the art world as having exhibited in these same institutions), the organizers could indeed allow unknown talents to have a voice out there in this ruthless world that is art and its business, and perhaps discover the Van Gogh’s and Darger’s of the Video art world before those artists die and remain forgotten in the after-life (Van Gogh was a lucky one despite his fame after his death after all since he at least got recognized – notwithstanding his talent obviously).
Anyways, it seems to me that Youtube is looking for artists in the medium of video and video-art, as after all, Guggenheim is an art museum…
But my hopes are too high probably and I wonder how the 200 videos are going to be selected, not even talking about the 20 remaining ones…
Still, I am just dreaming that they really look at all the submissions brought forth, and do go through a rigorous selection process with multiple kinds of judges from multiple backgrounds watching fully and “ranking” every single video submitted, and that they do select deserving unknown talents that do push the boundaries of what video and video art means as a protean medium that has a lot of history from the early days of portapak to the advent of HDSLR, and whatever comes next in the artist’s imagination to create new languages/forms of expressions/rebellion/younameit, and new means of communicating them through video.
I hope they do take into consideration elevating pieces of art works as opposed to what’s just hip or cool in terms of animation and effects or number of views, and also consider works that dare to dissent from what has already been shown in the 60s’, 70’s, 80’s or 90’s or 00’s… I really hope they do look for unusual, thoughtful, elevating, singular pieces… but my hopes are probably too high! I’m hopeful they do… it would be a big and bold statement… though I’m not optimistic about it.

L.K.

There’s a whole bunch of talented and hard-working unknown videomakers/artists who have used Youtube (and/or Vimeo, etc) as a platform to present their works online, and have never had any kind of exposure/recognition outside of obscure/indie places AND the internet platform (Youtube/Vimeo/their own personal sites), because the “right” people (those that are in the art and media business – curators/decision makers/art specialists/galleries/foundations/museums/collectors/press/you name the powers that be) have never heard of them (for whatever reasons, e.g. the artists didn’t have the right network of buddies, didn’t have the right pedigree/CV, didn’t come from within the art business, didn’t have a PR rep, nor the marketing skills/younameit, to get the exposure they deserve // also probably because of conservatism/uniformity of vision/narrow-mindedness from the art powers that be). In an era when the art world and general public has become more and more attached to the “fame” of an artist’s name rather that the quality of an artist’s work, if the Youtube Play selection process is fair (obviously it probably won’t be since it only involves a few select jurors kept secretly secret and institutional friends’ to judge the probably tens of thousands of submissions – I really hope the institutional friends won’t be those that recommend their own artists – artists who are already recognized in the art world as having exhibited in these same institutions), the organizers could indeed allow unknown talents to have a voice out there in this ruthless world that is art and its business, and perhaps discover the Van Gogh’s and Darger’s of the Video art world before those artists die and remain forgotten in the after-life (Van Gogh was a lucky one despite his fame after his death after all since he at least got recognized – notwithstanding his talent obviously).
Anyways, it seems to me that Youtube is looking for artists in the medium of video and video-art, as after all, Guggenheim is an art museum…
But my hopes are too high probably and I wonder how the 200 videos are going to be selected, not even talking about the 20 remaining ones…
Still, I am just dreaming that they really look at all the submissions brought forth, and do go through a rigorous selection process with multiple kinds of judges from multiple backgrounds watching fully and “ranking” every single video submitted, and that they do select deserving unknown talents that do push the boundaries of what video and video art means as a protean medium that has a lot of history from the early days of portapak to the advent of HDSLR, and whatever comes next in the artist’s imagination to create new languages/forms of expressions/rebellion/younameit, and new means of communicating them through video.
I hope they do take into consideration elevating pieces of art works as opposed to what’s just hip or cool in terms of animation and effects or number of views, and also consider works that dare to dissent from what has already been shown in the 60s’, 70’s, 80’s or 90’s or 00’s… I really hope they do look for unusual, thoughtful, elevating, singular pieces… but my hopes are probably too high! I’m hopeful they do… it would be a big and bold statement… though I’m not optimistic about it.

L.K.

There’s a whole bunch of talented and hard-working unknown videomakers/artists who have used Youtube (and/or Vimeo, etc) as a platform to present their works online, and have never had any kind of exposure/recognition outside of obscure/indie places AND the internet platform (Youtube/Vimeo/their own personal sites), because the “right” people (those that are in the art and media business – curators/decision makers/art specialists/galleries/foundations/museums/collectors/press/you name the powers that be) have never heard of them (for whatever reasons, e.g. the artists didn’t have the right network of buddies, didn’t have the right pedigree/CV, didn’t come from within the art business, didn’t have a PR rep, nor the marketing skills/younameit, to get the exposure they deserve // also probably because of conservatism/uniformity of vision/narrow-mindedness from the art powers that be). In an era when the art world and general public has become more and more attached to the “fame” of an artist’s name rather that the quality of an artist’s work, if the Youtube Play selection process is fair (obviously it probably won’t be since it only involves a few select jurors kept secretly secret and institutional friends’ to judge the probably tens of thousands of submissions – I really hope the institutional friends won’t be those that recommend their own artists – artists who are already recognized in the art world as having exhibited in these same institutions), the organizers could indeed allow unknown talents to have a voice out there in this ruthless world that is art and its business, and perhaps discover the Van Gogh’s and Darger’s of the Video art world before those artists die and remain forgotten in the after-life (Van Gogh was a lucky one despite his fame after his death after all since he at least got recognized – notwithstanding his talent obviously).
Anyways, it seems to me that Youtube is looking for artists in the medium of video and video-art, as after all, Guggenheim is an art museum…
But my hopes are too high probably and I wonder how the 200 videos are going to be selected, not even talking about the 20 remaining ones…
Still, I am just dreaming that they really look at all the submissions brought forth, and do go through a rigorous selection process with multiple kinds of judges from multiple backgrounds watching fully and “ranking” every single video submitted, and that they do select deserving unknown talents that do push the boundaries of what video and video art means as a protean medium that has a lot of history from the early days of portapak to the advent of HDSLR, and whatever comes next in the artist’s imagination to create new languages/forms of expressions/rebellion/younameit, and new means of communicating them through video.
I hope they do take into consideration elevating pieces of art works as opposed to what’s just hip or cool in terms of animation and effects or number of views, and also consider works that dare to dissent from what has already been shown in the 60s’, 70’s, 80’s or 90’s or 00’s… I really hope they do look for unusual, thoughtful, elevating, singular pieces… but my hopes are probably too high! I’m hopeful they do… it would be a big and bold statement… though I’m not optimistic about it.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=JackNightingale John Basko

Hello everybody here at Art Fag and sorry for rushing in with interloping reasons but I know Art Fag from the time of the Guggenheim – YouTube announcement. My name is Jack and this past Saturday morning I had a 2-year old experimental video banned on YouTube – Iâ€™m hoping that a juror for the Guggenheim -YouTube partnership reads this message here on Art Fag and will bring this horror to YouTube managementâ€™s attention – Takashi – Ryan – Douglas – Marilyn – Shirin – Stefan – Laurie – Animal Collective – Darren – Apichatpong – and Nancy Spencer – (this is the link to the thread in YouTubeâ€™s help section where this played out on miserable Saturday morning (the Guggenheim/ YouTube partnership is talked about here).

As God is my witness – this video does not break community guidelines.

Hello everybody here at Art Fag and sorry for rushing in with interloping reasons but I know Art Fag from the time of the Guggenheim – YouTube announcement. My name is Jack and this past Saturday morning I had a 2-year old experimental video banned on YouTube – Iâ€™m hoping that a juror for the Guggenheim -YouTube partnership reads this message here on Art Fag and will bring this horror to YouTube managementâ€™s attention – Takashi – Ryan – Douglas – Marilyn – Shirin – Stefan – Laurie – Animal Collective – Darren – Apichatpong – and Nancy Spencer – (this is the link to the thread in YouTubeâ€™s help section where this played out on miserable Saturday morning (the Guggenheim/ YouTube partnership is talked about here).

As God is my witness – this video does not break community guidelines.

Hello everybody here at Art Fag and sorry for rushing in with interloping reasons but I know Art Fag from the time of the Guggenheim – YouTube announcement. My name is Jack and this past Saturday morning I had a 2-year old experimental video banned on YouTube – Iâ€™m hoping that a juror for the Guggenheim -YouTube partnership reads this message here on Art Fag and will bring this horror to YouTube managementâ€™s attention – Takashi – Ryan – Douglas – Marilyn – Shirin – Stefan – Laurie – Animal Collective – Darren – Apichatpong – and Nancy Spencer – (this is the link to the thread in YouTubeâ€™s help section where this played out on miserable Saturday morning (the Guggenheim/ YouTube partnership is talked about here).

As God is my witness – this video does not break community guidelines.